Siblings
by FollowtheAurora
Summary: Jimmy and Neena aren't ordinary children.
1. Chapter 1

There's darkness.

I can't see a thing.

The lights went out all at once. A power cut?

Where's my brother?

"Jimmy?"

There's no one there…

What?

I'm touching the wall. There's large scratch marks.

_Run Neena._

That's what Jimmy calls me.

_Run pretty girly. Run far away Neena._

I can feel them. Why is my brother's nickname for me scratched on the walls?

What?

The lights went off as soon as I entered the room. Jimmy was with me a second ago.

Wasn't he?

No.

No, he wasn't.

I heard him calling, but I didn't see him.

_Run away, Neena._

_Run run run, pretty._

**CRACK!**

I duck. I scream.

The bullet ricochets off the wall and smashes the mirror.

"Run Neena…"

I don't breathe.

Jimmy sounds… the same.

I always think he's going to sound different when he flips.

He never does.

"Run, pretty girly!"

The Irish lilt in Jimmy's voice sounds creepy when he's crooning my name with a gun in his hand.

I wonder if my voice sounds the same when I flip.

But we never remember our flips.

**CRACK!**

Another bullet. I don't scream this time. The last one just caught me by surprise.

Boy, if I had a penny for every time I'd ducked behind this couch to avoid Jimmy's bullets…

The scratches are a nice touch though. He's never done that before.

One day Jimmy will flip for good.

Flip and stay flipped.

That's what my mum said.

She was my fault, really.

No more bullets.

"Neena?"

Jimmy's back.

"I'm fine." I stand back up again.

Jimmy is unloading the gun onto the table. He hand the bullets to me. He always does, I don't know why. I keep mine.

I'd never let Jimmy get his little paws on _my _ammo.

"Sorry," Jimmy says, his little ten-year-old voice high and sincere. "Sorry Neena."

I put the bullets in my pocket.

"It's fine Jimmy," I say. I can never understand why he always apologises.

He only flipped.

God knows I'm worse when I flip.

He only almost shot me.

That's not bad.

"Let's clean up. This place is a tip."

**Ok, I have… pretty much no idea where the idea for this came from. Just to clarify, in case anybody is confused, Jimmy is Jim Moriarty, and Neena is not an OC. Can anybody guess who she is? :)**

**It's a bit disjointed as yet, but all will be explained!**

**-FollowTheAurora**


	2. Chapter 2

Jimmy wakes up in the middle of the night again.

He cries for mummy.

Sometimes he forgets she's not here anymore.

She would always tell us to do stuff, but we had to ask her to do something we wanted.

I remember thinking that was rude.

She'd tell us, "Don't talk to those children." "Stay inside." "Don't let anybody in."

Dad was worse though.

He'd always tell us we were freaks, the lot of us.

Apparently it's only the three of us that flip.

Me and Mummy and Jimmy.

Well, only two now.

Dad was always telling us he was normal, and we all ought to be locked up.

Telling us we were mutants. Weirdos. _Freaks._

I didn't like Dad a whole lot. I told him so.

He always said he'd sort me out. _Cheeky madam._

Then Jimmy flipped, and sorted _him _out.

Serve him right.

I hold Jimmy on my lap and begin to tell him his favourite story, the story of my first flip.

It was my ninth birthday. Mum made me a cake, and she locked Dad in the bedroom especially for me, to keep him out of the way. Jimmy was only eight.

We had party poppers, and the colours and the lights just got in my eyes, and it was like there were bugs crawling on the inside of my skull, my brain was fizzing and bubbling and overloading…

Nothing faded to black. My vision wasn't obscured. I just remember taking a step forward, and for me it was like I had taken a step forward in time without knowing it.

Mum and Jimmy were huddled under the table. Mum had a gash on her arm, and the blood was dripping onto the lino. I was holding a kitchen knife. Jimmy was crying.

I remember Mum cleaned up, and sat me down, and crouched down to my height, and said, "Now Neena, I want you to listen carefully to what I am going to say to you now, and remember it." She looked the most serious I had ever seen her.

"That was a flip. You can't control them. They just happen. When you flip, you will most likely try to hurt anybody around you."

I bit my lip.

She didn't notice. "Flips don't last long. And nobody knows about them."

"Why not, Mummy?"

"Nobody understands, my sweet. Like your father says, they would lock us up. They're all… they're so…" She inhaled sharply. "Everyone around you is SUCH AN IDIOT!" She screamed the last words, and I flinched.

She bent her head. "I'm sorry, darling. Brain ran away there for a second."

That's what we always said, when we got frustrated at other people's intelligence. People on the telly. And Dad. Mum always shouted at the telly. _Brain ran away with me._ Sometimes we felt so clever. Me and Mummy and Jimmy.

Jimmy looks up at me. He's so innocent, not at all the way he looks when he flips.

I find myself thinking of Jimmy's first flip.

I begin to tell him that story. That's _my _favourite.

It was just another normal day. We were reading textbooks in the kitchen. The television was on in the background for Dad. I could usually block it out.

The news man was talking about schools. I had never been to school. Mummy taught us some things, and we figured the rest out ourselves. When I was small and Jimmy was smaller, I used to complain about it, because school looked fun on the television. Lots of children, running around, everything colourful and bright. Mummy told me we were too special to go to school. She told me she hadn't been to school either.

We were the special ones.

Me and Mummy and Jimmy.

Dad turned the television up louder, because Mum wasn't listening. Jimmy flinched. I noticed. He flinched a lot just before he flipped, back when he first started.

Mum turned away from Dad and he turned the television up louder. I repeated something Mum had said about Dad once, over and over in my head. It helps me from going mad at him when he was deliberately idiotic. "Your father is an ignorant, lazy, foul, violent slob," Mummy had said, after one of their biggest fights. It was the first time I had seen her flip.

Jimmy was twitching by this point. It was like he had a bee on his ear.

_My father is an ignorant, lazy, foul, violent slob._

_My father is an ignorant, lazy, foul, violent slob._

_My father_

A notch louder.

_Ignorant, lazy…_

Louder.

_Foul, violent…_

Louder.

_Father is an ign-_

Jimmy stood up and I knew something was wrong. Gone was his little wide-eyed expression. His pupils were blown wide. His innocent smile dragged itself into an insane grimace. He grabbed the serrated cheese knife from the breakfast table, ran over and without any warning, slit our father's throat.

No-one said a word.

Jimmy just watched as the ragged, deep cut he'd made in our father's neck slowly started to leak blood over his little hands. Dad's head just drooped, and his breathing just stopped, and then he collapsed fully onto Jimmy, who stepped back, innocence returning.

I can't say I was sad then.

I can't say that I'm sad now.

Jimmy has fallen asleep in my arms to my tales of blood and insanity. I look at his tiny fingers that once were drowning in red, at his pale lips that once stretched in a frightening grin, at closed lids that once were open and startled, reflecting the image of our father choking on his own blood and gristle and muscle and sinew, a crimson tinted picture in deep black pools.

No.

I'm not sad.

**A/N: So, I hope you're finding this creepy enough! It's a lot of fun to write. Just tell me if it's not scary enough, and I'll go full-on psychopath. ^^**

**Reviews will stop little Jimmy flipping and stabbing you with a cheese knife! :)**

**P.S Yep, you got it, Neena is Janine ^^**


	3. Chapter 3

**This chapter is quite short, sorry :/ Hope you enjoy it anyways :)**

* * *

The rays of morning sunlight filter through the grimy glass of the windows, illuminating Jimmy's face. He's got sooty smudges on his nose. Powder burns on his fingers and gunpowder under his nails. We'll have to give him a wash before we head out to the shop today.

I had done it a lot of times before. I was still scared though.

Going outside was not something we did very often, Jimmy and I.

But we always made sure we look presentable.

_Quick out and in. _That's what mum always said. _Quick out and in._

After all, you never know when you might flip.

Jimmy's nervous too.

"Neena? Do we have to go?" His eyes are huge. He knows just how to play me.

Or rather, he knew. He still hasn't caught on that I've grown up a little. He can't charm me with his little puppy-dog face anymore.

"Do you want to starve, Jimmy?" I say, in my best mother voice.

He doesn't say anything. He just scowls.

It's frighteningly like his scowl when he flips.

We're squeaky clean, hair brushed flat, clothes neat, standing at the door. I've got my shopping list and purse in one hand, and I've got a hold of Jimmy's wrist with the other. The front door looms in front of us, a gateway to a strange world of sun and streets and shops and people.

I hate going shopping.

Jimmy turns the handle. He has a sort of sixth sense, where he can tell if I'm not going to do something. He knows I could stand in front of that door for a million years and never push it open. In many ways, Jimmy's so much braver than me.

I wish he wasn't.

The sunlight hits us, momentarily blinding me. We are quiet and small and crooked from many years in the dark. Jimmy and I.

The walk to the shop is brisk. I don't turn my head, or look around. Bright colours trigger me. I just fix my eyes on an unmoving grey cloud on the horizon and repeat the phrase that always keeps me calm.

_My father is an ignorant, lazy, foul, violent slob._

_My father is an ignorant, lazy, foul, violent slob._

The man is gone, but the significance of the words has never faded for me. I didn't flip that day.

I don't flip now.

I just keep walking, and dragging Jimmy behind me.

He seems ok too. I can't feel him twitching, thank god. We're safe for now.

We get to the shop, and I consult my shopping list. It's the one Mum wrote, way before Jimmy and I were even born, and she kept it, and she used it, and now I use it.

_The food on this shopping list will feed two people for twelve-and-a-half months._ That's written at the top of the sheet. Mummy lived her life in periods of twelve-and-a-half months. That's what Mummy did.

She shopped. She cooked. She yelled. She taught.

Then twelve-and-a-half months would go by and she would go shopping and start again.

Sometimes I'm scared I'll turn into Mum.

I shop. I cook. I teach, sometimes.

I don't yell.

(Although Jimmy says I yell when I flip).

The woman at the counter doesn't try to make conversation this time. I remember that almost set Jimmy off, two shops ago. I had to throw some money at the lady and run back home. I barely got him through the door before he flipped and started trying to strangle me.

She does give me a funny look. I suppose, in comparison to the other shoppers, Jimmy and I do buy rather a lot. We look strange too. I'm so pale in comparison to the girl standing behind me. Our clothes are odd as well. I'm in Mummy's old grey dress, from When She Was My Age. It looks a bit… outdated. Jimmy is in Grandfather's old knee-length flannel trousers and white shirt, although it's more grey, now. There are only so many sink washes an old shirt can take.

We get home.

That's an achievement in itself.

When we close the door behind us again, shutting us off from the world, I grab the permanent marker that always lies on the table in the hallway and draw another tally mark on the bare cement wall.

One more shopping trip with no problems.


	4. Chapter 4

**This chapter's really quite creepy. I'm kinda proud of it :)**

**Hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

We haven't had any more flips recently. Thank God.

I am so _bored _of cleaning up afterwards. Those scratch marks Jimmy left on the wall took me days to cover up. I had to go down into the basement and get wallpaper paste that was almost all dried up, and we didn't have any more of the peeling wallpaper that's already weakly clinging to the wall, so I had to use _wrapping paper, _and it looks awful, but it covers up the scratches.

They didn't bother me particularly, but Jimmy didn't want to see them.

I'm cooking just now. Stirring a big pot of pasta sauce. I have to stand on a stool to reach the hob, because I'm a bit short. I won't always be, though. I'm only twelve. I'll grow.

There's a knock at the door.

I almost fall off my stool.

There hasn't been a Knock At The Door since I was five.

Jimmy runs into the kitchen. "What's that?"

He doesn't even remember the last Knock At The Door.

I put down my spoon. "Jimmy, stay here. Be very quiet. Don't move. Don't talk. Don't _breathe. _I'll be back soon."

He scrambles under the wooden legs with their crumbly white paint and puts his hand over his mouth.

With every step I take towards the door, the pull of gravity seems to get stronger, and my feet seem to get heavier, and my breaths seem to get shallower, and my heart seems to beat quicker.

I can see the silhouette of somebody behind the frosted glass.

It's a _person._

An actual _person. _Someone that isn't Mummy or Dad, or the lady behind the counter at the shop.

What do I _do?_

What do I _say?_

I'm scared I'll just stand there for ages, trying to get the courage to open the door, so I just grab the handle and _yank _it open quick.

There's a man standing there.

He's in a red uniform, and I can see his van outside. It's a postman.

"Hello," he says politely. "Is your mum in?"

"No," I answer stiffly, wondering if he can see the stains on my dress from where the pasta sauce has spilled. "I'm sorry, she's…" I wrack my brains for an answer that won't make him say he'll come back later. "She's currently staying with my cousin in Liverpool. My grandmother is looking after myself and my brother just now, but she is at the shop."

The postman looks slightly taken aback to find this speech spilling from the mouth of a tiny twelve year old.

"Okay," he says, trying to keep his smile. Apparently that's what people do when confronted with small children. "Well, somebody's sent her a package, and she has to sign for it. When she gets back, could you tell her to come to the post office to collect it?"

I nod mutely, even though I know I will do nothing of the sort.

"Good girl." He ruffles my hair, and turns his back before he can see me turn to the mirror, annoyed, to fix it.

He gets into his van. I watch him go.

He drives off.

I don't shut the door until the van has gone two streets down, and turned the corner.

It's out of sight.

After the excitement of the Knock At The Door, making pasta sauce seems rather boring.

I feel terribly grown up.

I _answered the door_.

I _talked to the postman._

_And I managed to make him go away._

I'm quite proud.

Jimmy's awfully quiet. He's missing Mummy, I think.

I can tell when Jimmy misses Mummy, because he just mopes around and won't talk to me. He's dangling over the back of the couch, hanging upside down. He won't even look at me.

It's my fault, you see. That Mum's gone.

I'm not sorry.

I think that's the difference between Jimmy and me. He's _sorry._

_Sorry _he killed Dad.

_Sorry _for nearly killing me.

_Sorry _for wrecking the place.

_Sorry _he flips.

Jimmy's _sorry._

I'm not.

Mum was annoying me, the day she died.

"Neena, clean your room." "Neena, wash the dishes." "Neena, pick up those clothes!"

Neena do this, Neena do that! I wasn't her _slave._

I saw red.

Stupid Mum.

She kept going.

"Neena! For God's sake! Your room is a pigsty! What are you, an animal?" She glared at me.

Stupid Mum.

_Stupid._

Next thing I knew, my mother was lying on the floor in a steadily growing pool of her own blood.

Jimmy was crying.

I had two kitchen knives in my hands and a smile on my face.

We don't usually remember our flips, but I can remember my mother's screams. Distantly, like a sound long forgotten, tortured cries of death carried on the winds of my memory.

They help me get to sleep on dark nights.


	5. Chapter 5

The days pass.

Before I know it, it is Jimmy's 11th birthday. I make him a cake, but I can't find any candles, so I shove a lighted match in the middle of the sunken sponge. The smudged white water icing runs down the sides and all over the table, because I couldn't find a plate big enough to put it on. The match burns out and the charred ash gets spread all over the icing when I try to cut it. We eat it anyway.

It somehow seems like an accurate picture of Jimmy and I.

It reminds me of something Mummy used to say. _Jimmy is a flame, Neena, and so are you. _A flame that's burning out too quickly, far too quickly. Burning what's around it. _That's why we stay away, Neena. People burn._

_People burn._

I've always wanted to test that hypothesis.

Jimmy doesn't flip on his birthday. I'm glad. Not just because I don't want to clean up, but because some childish part of me still believes that birthdays should be special. A perfect day.

I have to get rid of that sentiment.

So, I don't test my hypothesis on Jimmy's birthday.

Although I'm sure he would have _adored _a human candle for his cake.

* * *

It's a few more months before Jimmy has finally had enough.

"I want to go outside."

He just says it over dinner one day. We're having mashed potatoes. I detest mashed potatoes but they're all we've got left. The potatoes are going mouldy and there isn't much I can do to salvage them, except eat them quickly.

Jimmy carries on eating and waits for me to reply.

"Why?"

I'm not going to let him go outside, of course. His last flip was only two weeks ago. He tried to smother me in the middle of the night.

"I'd like to see the world. I have to test if what Mummy said about it was true."

"You don't believe it's dangerous?"

Jimmy has always shied away from the world because he believes _he _is dangerous.

I don't think he ever thought the world was a match for him.

"No."

The expected answer.

"You think you are dangerous. You told me so after your second flip."

He doesn't say anything for a while. I start to think I've got him.

I haven't, of course.

"I am dangerous. That might be an asset."

Interesting. Jimmy's changed his priorities.

"You're dangerous to other people. Do you care about that?"

"You can't claim that you care about it."

"No. But do you?"

A pause.

"I'm not sure. The older I get the less important it seems."

We clean the dishes in companionable silence.

* * *

When Jimmy's asleep, I lock myself in the bathroom and study my reflection in the grimy mirror.

"Jimmy's growing up," I say aloud.

"Jimmy's growing up."

I think of the people outside. The lives that never mattered to me. How Jimmy could uproot their mundane little world, and shatter their silly little normality. All the lives that could be lost.

I can't decide whether I am worried or elated.

**Sorry for the short chapter and the long wait :) hope you enjoyed anyway!**

**Reviews are wonderful :D Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to click that box and give me lovely feedback!**


	6. Chapter 6

I turn sixteen on the 24th of May.

Jimmy has been fifteen for 135 days.

I decide he is old enough.

I can't deny I'm nervous.

I haven't regained my sympathy for the Ordinary People, as Jimmy and I have taken to calling them.

But even so, it has been drilled into me since I could crawl that I must _never, ever, _under _any_ circumstances, go outside. I am never to let myself experience society. Never to feel sunlight on my skin.

It seems more and more unfair the more I think about it.

We stand at the door, just like we have always done on every shopping trip, every risky run to the cash withdrawal (because of course we had Dad's number memorised), every time we crept outside to guiltily feel the warmth of summer, or the bone-deep chill of winter. Jimmy no longer holds my hand.

He's taken to being called Jim now.

I don't care. He's always going to be Jimmy to me.

Our clothes are more current than when we used to run to the shops as kids. We no longer dress in relics that could have been stolen from a museum. Jimmy has jeans, and a plain blue t-shirt, and a nondescript navy jacket. I am wearing denim shorts with black tights underneath with a more feminine flowing top. We managed to acquire them with a rather high-risk heist to the neighbour's washing line. Our shoes are the only things that look out of place, as we has to keep our old ones we got from the trunk in the basement, where Mummy would always pull new clothes when we outgrew our old ones.

I open the door this time.

I am loosing Jimmy on the world. I have a strange desire to assume responsibility for what might happen today.

We walk the furthest we have ever walked, right down to the shopping centre. There's so much noise. Light. People. It frustrates me. I want them to _shut up._

Jimmy loves it.

I can see it. He's fallen for the hustle and bustle, finds something satisfying in being the odd one in the crowd but fooling the Ordinary People into thinking he's one of them. That's when I realise for certain.

I will never detain Jimmy. I will never keep him inside a cage. Jimmy was built for this. Designed for deception. Conceived to be clever. His purpose is to outwit.

He can't survive if he can't outsmart somebody.

From this day, Jimmy is going to go out where he wants, when he wants, and I am never going to be able to stop him.

He's outgrown me.

For the first time in my life, I am certain of something:

He's outgrown me. And I am terrified.

**Another short chapter, but things are moving a little faster now :) hope you enjoyed!**


	7. Chapter 7

Jimmy calls me once every year.

It's our little tradition.

He calls me, usually from a drastically different place in the world, and gives me the updates on his web of crime.

He sends me money, too.

I don't bother to ask how he gets my address.

My current home is a cosy little flat in Newcastle. I like it. It's weirdly homely, with its plump burgundy throw cushions and tiny wood-burning stove. I find it slightly disconcerting, but pleasant at the same time.

I move about twice every year. Money is never an object. Jimmy makes sure of that.

Jimmy didn't ever flip for good. I suppose that's strange, considering I lived my childhood expecting it. It occurred to me once, that Jimmy and I never appeared much different to Mummy, and so she must have thought that one day I would flip and stay flipped.

Maybe I have.

I've got no way of knowing.

Jimmy mocks me during his annual calls.

Ordinary Neena, with her shiny new second name, swapped every month like her phone. Ordinary Neena, with her friends as disposable as plastic bags. _Ordinary _Neena.

It really bothers him.

I'm far from ordinary, really. I uproot myself so often because I do little favours for Jimmy, now and again. Sometimes there's somebody who just needs their tea sweetened with a little arsenic. Somebody who's car needs a little nudge over a cliff. A few jewels needing a new home. Children who need to be relocated, just for a little bit, until the appropriate sum is paid off.

I would never admit it to Jimmy, but I enjoy it.

* * *

I'm in the middle of completing a little favour for Jimmy at the moment.

I resist the urge to put my hands over my ears as the noise in the restaurant swells. I'm a waitress, and have been for a few months now. I slip past customers, balancing three trays of drinks on my arms with practiced ease. I gracefully turn to push the door with my back and enter a room with a long table, at the head of which, sits a middle aged man engaged in discussion with a woman on his right, oblivious to all others attempting to catch his attention. I can see from several little details (that none of the Ordinaries will notice, of course) that he is a banker, and in a position of authority. He's married (four years) but has had a string of affairs, none of which have been discovered by his alcoholic wife. He likes the look of the new face at the table. She wasn't there last year. I don't even glance her way .

I dutifully deliver glasses to all the well-dressed people at the table. As I come to the man at the top, I almost imperceptibly run my ring finger along the rim of his glass. I've been careful not to let this finger touch any of the other glasses.

His narrowed eyes don't even stray to his drink as he lifts it to his lips and takes a sip. He is too busy concentrating on the ridiculously low neckline of his new interest's dress.

I escape out the door with a murmured excuse. Nobody spares me a second glance as I slide soundlessly into the male bathroom.

There's no-one there, of course. Jimmy took care of that for me. My internalised clock is ticking. It has been approximately three minutes and twenty-six seconds since I laced Martin Janesbury's glass with delayed reaction poison.

I lock myself into a stall and wait.

I don't have to wait too long.

I hear the stumbling footsteps that tell me Janesbury has entered the bathroom. He doesn't bother to lock the door as he retches into the toilet next to mine. Hopefully, he should have only lost motor function about halfway down the corridor. Nobody would have seen.

There's a slump and a shatter as Janesbury passes out, and the wine glass he was carrying smashes on the cold tiles.

"Why would he take the glass?"

The voice is curious, yet still manages to be slinky.

I didn't know Jimmy had drafted her in for this one.

I unlock the door, and with as much dignity as I can call upon, step out, and place one hand on my hip.

"Men are ridiculous," Irene Adler says dismissively to me.

* * *

I walk with Irene back to her car.

"What was his conversation like, then? Pick up anything interesting?" Our heels click on the pavement in unison.

"From Janesbury? Not likely. He was a terrible bore." She sighed.

"Admirable of you to put up with him ogling you like that. He bought the excuse hook, line and sinker."

"Absolutely. I can't believe he swallowed that. As if I could only have been employed that year." She shakes her head with a chuckle. "The idiot."

"Not a big loss to humanity." We've reached her car. Her girl, Kate, is in the driving seat. I open the door to let Irene climb in, graceful and feminine as ever. Irene, by the look of her, outranks me. But I know Jimmy would cut anybody loose and leave them floundering if it meant saving my neck.

The car drives off, the engine silent in the night. I give its rapidly shrinking back a sarcastic wave.

Another job done.

**a/n: Yes! Irene turned up ^^ I didn't actually expect that, but it happened. I hope you enjoyed reading it, because I loved writing it!**

**So, my little baby insane criminals have grown up. Things will hopefully start getting a bit more interesting now ^^**

**Reviews are love!**


End file.
